Ashland Craft is the 'Travelin' Kind' who has learned lessons on road to success

Marcus King recently headlined the Ryman Auditorium. His opener, Ashland Craft, grew up 20 minutes away from him in Piedmont, South Carolina.

Though they never crossed life paths until pairing for the 2021 release of "Highway Like Me," they share the same roots in bluesy, classic rock-fueled, honky-tonk beloved music that bleeds with authentic country informed by the genre's folksy roots in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

"Ashland needs a guitar and her voice, not even a microphone," King says. "She's quite possibly my favorite modern country vocalist."

King's love of Craft's voice is a profound statement. The Grammy-nominated Greenville, South Carolina, native has spent much of the past three years opening for Chris Stapleton. He also cites Duane Allman, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Albert King and B.B. King as influences.

To make a simple allegory, Craft's 13-month-old album "Travelin' Kind" gave a growing multitude of predominantly female country music fans an unexpected introduction to a blend of bittersweet psychedelic blues and warm folk rock that aims to fall somewhere between Janis Joplin and Bonnie Raitt.

In March, Craft joined Hardy onstage at Bridgestone Arena to sing Lauren Alaina's vocal parts on Billboard No. 1 hit "One Beer." Six months later, she's at the Ryman, backstage, fresh from opening for King and seated under a portrait of Hank Williams.

The road from her wild roots playing in the house band at Wendell's Dippin Branch bar in Anderson, South Carolina, to country music's Mother Church resonates differently when Craft realizes she's literally sitting under Williams.

"Getting people to care about the music, just like Hank, that's the 'Honkytonk Blues,' I guess," she says.

Though she's sitting in one of music's most legendary venues, some things have changed for her since leaving South Carolina, including success on "The Voice" five years ago and signing with Big Loud Records in 2020.

She's cognizant now of the resilience borne of surviving the "hustle and bustle" of frequent touring that's required to excel in mainstream country music.

Craft is at her most comfortable on the road creating as many organic connections as possible to songs like "I Smoke Weed," her jaunty, sing-a-long Hixtape collaboration with "musical heroes" the Brothers Osborne, as well as the lovelorn ballad "Make It Past Georgia."

Love for the latter is "exactly what I wanted," she says. The ballad tells a bittersweet tale of the constant heartbreak associated with balancing musical aspirations, the need for love, and the inability to accept the frailties of potential partners.

"Sometimes, great guys can't get themselves together long enough to be in a long-term relationship," says Craft. "Relationships still teach life lessons, though. Life is a road map; sometimes you want to turn back around and think you can't make it past someone, but you do."

She describes her live set as fun and interactive, which has yielded what she describes as a "fruitful outcome" in the form of a significant boost in social media fandom and streaming plays. In addition, a song like the album cut "Leaving You Again" has grown in popularity because it is one of her favorites to play live.

"When I sing ['Leaving You Again'] live, it speaks well to my story and showcases my musical inspirations," she says. "I'm thankful for how it's connected with the fans and gave them a greater sense of what I want to contribute to country music."

Craft's desire to mimic Joplin's willingness to "be herself and live life freely" takes greater shape before she hits the stage at the Ryman. Late on a Friday afternoon at East Nashville's Black Shag Vintage clothier, the singer-songwriter is surrounded by fringed stage wear, bold turquoise and silver squash blossom necklaces, vintage silver rings, leather cowboy boots, and other remnants of yesteryear.

But Craft is picking through vintage patches.

"I want to wear these pants onstage that have patches everywhere," she says.

Having seen success with her debut album, she's primarily begun figuring out her sound. Now, feeling more secure in herself as a mainstream artist on the rise, she's slowly putting together her onstage presentation. She's a mess of constant giggles and smiles while trying on a tiger-striped '80s shoulder-padded blouse, and her jaw dropped when examining a pair of multicolored, 60-year-old, custom-made, stacked-heel boots.

"Gosh, I love those, but I played softball in high school," she says. "My calves are still all muscle. There's no way they'll fit."

She's at a place as an artist and creator where first-world problems solved by whimsical happenstance are as commonplace as hard questions of how to make enough time off the road to write or record material while also doing multiple loads of laundry.

But, she notes, as long as she keeps things simple, she'll excel.

Craft will be an artist whose success – much like King's – will likely come from crafting albums able to withstand innumerable live gigs and festival performances in front of a dizzyingly diverse array of fans.

Preparing to head back into the studio for album No. 2 this winter, she's evolved her thinking about how she will excel as a potential star.

"It's not about singing the highest, biggest notes anymore," she says. "I have to deliver the best performance possible nightly. Being conscious about how I write and record this album is very important, and I intend to do that.

"I'm just a girl who loves the simple things in life and wants to use my musical career to strive to be a better person."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Ashland Craft is the 'Travelin' Kind' who learns lessons on the road